“Right.” Clara started for the bar. “We’re out of Champagne, but you’re a good Christian, maybe you can tell me: where in the Bible does it say you can’t have a gin and tonic before lunch?”

Henry said he’d love one too. Effie said to make it three, she didn’t want to feel left out.

They made ham sandwiches with pimento cheese and ate them out by the pool. The sun was bright but the temperature had dropped over the course of the morning, and by noon, for the first time in days, it felt like fall. Like it was supposed to feel in the middle of October. They finished their sandwiches and went back inside. Clara closed the patio doors. Max had been gone for over an hour, and Henry began to worry what was taking him so long. Maybe she’d decided to tell him everything, to ask him for money before she left, and they were fighting now, and soon he’d come to beat Henry to a bloody pulp. Or maybe he’d caught a peek at the drawing somehow, and the same scene was playing out. The gin helped calm his nerves. He made himself another drink, and Clara joined him. Effie put on a Johnny Mercer record. He was a good Georgia boy, she said. Was he, really? Clara said. Effie said Henry should build a fire—yes, a fire would be nice, Clara said—and as he began stacking the wood, Max returned at last. Alone. Henry watched him closely. But there seemed to be no change in his manner.

“Ah, good, a fire. It’s getting nippy out there.”

“You were gone an eternity,” Clara said.

“I wanted to see her off.”

“Really, Maxie, you didn’t have to sit with her. She’s a grown woman.”

“I think it’s precious how you worry over her,” Effie said.

Before he could stop himself, Henry said, “She got on the train?”

It was stupid of him. But he was confused. Max smiled at him, a smile he couldn’t read. “Does that surprise you?”

Effie was looking at him too, sweetly blank, registering only that he’d spoken.

“I mean,” he said, “you waited with her until she got on the train.”

“Because,” Clara cut in, “he thinks she’ll run off with the circus or something if he isn’t watching her. Honestly, Maxie.”

The moment passed. Max rubbed his hands together and said how about that fire. Like a dummy he’d driven with the top down. Clara said he should have a drink too, and join the party.